The Hunter
by sohypothetically
Summary: Summary: Katniss Everdeen finds an arresting Tumblr blog and becomes obsessed with finding the owner. Imagine her surprise when he turns out to be someone from her past? Will sparks ignite between the two of them? (Warning: Hints of sexual harassment, stalking, agile software development)


_I do not own THG._

_Summary: Katniss Everdeen finds an arresting Tumblr blog and becomes obsessed with finding the owner. Imagine her surprise when he turns out to be someone from her past? Will sparks ignite between the two of them?_

_RATED M._

_Warning: Hints of sexual harassment, stalking, agile software development. If you are passionate about waterfall, you may not want to read this iterative story._

**The Hunter: Greed**

"So, how was the first day of true insanity?"

Katniss Everdeen bit down on her bottom lip. She should have known that her friend and former roommate Johanna Mason would cut right to the heart of it. "The new job is good."

"Not what I asked, Brainless. Did you find him?" Johanna's voice was curt and it made Katniss wince.

"Yes." she hedged.

"Really? Did you talk to him?"

"My new boss introduced me to him at Scrum. And my cube is only one row over from his." Katniss slid out of her black suit jacket and threw it over a chair while she padded around her apartment in her stockings. She couldn't wait to get into some sweats. The weather had been cold and rainy, not ideal for her first day at EyeView Corp. and she had arrived in the office for her first day cold and wet, water droplets staining her silk blouse. Mitch Abernathy, her Engineering Manager had promptly dumped her off with a ScrumMaster named Dave Boggs who had introduced her to the Scrumptious software development team. The other team, he had explained, was called the Careers because they were a more experienced team of engineers. Katniss didn't care which team she was on, as long as the reason for her coming to EyeView Corp. in the first place was on her team.

"…And?" Johanna sounded impatient.

"And, that's it." Katniss winced at how lame that sounded, even to her. She waited for the inevitable Mason explosion.

"Everdeen, what the fuck?"

"Jo, come on, give me a—"

"No. Fuck that. You've been talking about hunting this guy down for like two years. You have sex dreams about him for Christ's sake. You move all the way across the country after getting me involved in a fucking goose chase to find him and what do you do when you see him for the first time since high school? _Nothing_? Come on."

Katniss shut her eyes: her friend was right, she was a chicken. "It's not like I was going to just lay him down in his cube and have my wicked way with him. What did you expect?"

At the silence on the other end of the phone that meant Johanna thought exactly that, Katniss rubbed her temples, sighed and said quietly if obediently, "I'll talk to him tomorrow."

Johanna sounded appeased, if only for the moment. "You better, Gutless. I broke like four state laws just tracking him down. Are you still having the sex dreams about him?"

Katniss balanced the phone on her shoulder and tugged off her pantyhose. "I'm not telling you about my dreams."

Johanna cackled and it sounded like she was rubbing her hands together in anticipation. "That's a yes. Come on. Don't be greedy, tell me one!"

"No. No way." Katniss was not going to share her most intimate dreams with Johanna, no matter how much she owed her for helping to locate the object of her long-time crush. Not even if Johanna had broken state laws, put up with her pathetic mewling about him, and helped her pack for her move.

Johanna coaxed. "Come on…. Please? After all I've done for you?" When only stony silence met Johanna's pleas, she switched tactics. "Fine. At least tell me how he looked. Good enough to bust a nut over?"

Katniss considered her first meeting with Peeta Mellark in seven years. He looked older than she had expected: laugh lines faintly emphasizing his blue, blue eyes; he looked heavier too, no longer the lean boy she remembered from high school; he had a cane, black with flames on it, resting near his chair. She wondered idly if he used it all the time or only when it was rainy or snowy out. He had stubble, too, blonde and glinting in the light from the like-natural light fixtures and his blonde hair was darker now, not the bleached blonde it had been the summer before senior year. His jaw was squarer, too. She remembered that he clenched it when he was unhappy about something.

At least, she thought he did. She wondered if that was an actual memory of just something she'd made up in her fictional and deeply embellished encounters with the dream version of him. And his hands –

"Hello? Anyone fucking there?" Johanna cackled again. "Oh, that's right, there is _no one fucking_, there. Man, I crack myself up. Everdeen, come on. Give me the goods: is he hot? I'm dying over here. It's been like 12 hours since I came."

Katniss had to stop for a moment to clear her throat, so affected was she by the memory of his pale hands with their broad palms and capable fingers flying over the keyboard. She wondered what those hands would feel like against her skin. What would it take for those manicured nails to dig into his own palms as he called out her name?

Her voice was a little shaky. "Yes. Yes, he's hot. Are you happy now?"

A bark of laughter came across the line. "No. I'm not going to be happy until I get pictures of him naked _after_ you've made him your love slave. That still _is_ the plan, isn't it? You didn't move and start a brand-fucking-new job to talk to him at the water cooler every day?"

Katniss shook off her erotic imaginings and put a frozen dinner in the microwave, tapping her foot as the seconds counted down. She rolled her eyes at her friend. "Jo, there is no water cooler in corporate America anymore. We congregate around the Keurig."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm never getting a corporate job, so what do I care? All the information I need is at my fingertips."

Johanna was a cyber-investigator and a damn good one at that. Katniss knew that Los Angeles Police Department furnished her friend with a steady supply of funds that paid the bills and young, male bodies in uniform. That last was a necessary perk because Johanna liked a lot of variety. She said it kept her fresh and also limber.

Truth be told, Katniss missed Johanna's sense of humor and unorthodox hours. No one understood her the way the way Johanna did, crying with her when she got the news that her sister was accepted full scholarship to Duke, or when she heard that Sae, a friend from Katniss's hometown who practically raised her, had been diagnosed with cancer, or supporting her when she broke up with Gale, her post high school boyfriend. Jo had been particularly understanding during that last one and had even offered Katniss a threesome to help her "get back in the saddle". Katniss had declined graciously and opted for a lonely night of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food while Johanna played _Frisk Me, Officer_ with two lieutenants.

Sometimes Katniss wished she had half of Johanna's confidence. And ingenuity.

"You don't…you don't think I'm really nuts for doing this, do you?" Katniss crossed her arms over her chest. The Phish Food night had led to the discovery of a Tumblr blog, which led to an email address, which matched a LinkedIn profile and a name. Katniss had been shocked when the name was one she knew. LinkedIn provided a company name and eventually (thanks to Johanna) she had a physical address.

She had just been too scared to ever contact him.

Jo answered without a pause. "For becoming obsessed with a guy you remember from high school because of his erotic poetry online?" Katniss winced. When Johanna put it that way, it did sound insane.

"Well, yeah. Duh. Of course. It _is_ crazy. The best plans usually are, Fuck-nugget. Now, I want you to make some mac and cheese or microwave popcorn. And tomorrow, I want you to walk up to Peter and say something amazing. Tell him he has nice pecs. Or that you'd like to suck on his tongue. Or tell him your exercise ball needs air and ask if you can sit on his face instead. Or maybe grab his ass. Yeah, now that I think about it, that's the winner: if he's a man of action, he'll really like that."

Katniss couldn't help but laugh. "Jo, stop. Stop! You are hysterical, you know that? Ever heard of sexual harassment? His name is Peeta. Peeta Mellark. And what if I started simple and asked him to lunch?"

"Lunch?" Katniss hears a heavy sigh. "Well, that's a totally plebe move, but it's a start.

-o—

Katniss's hands shook as she trashed her chocolate hazelnut coffee pod and put an espresso pod into the machine: her mug held more than 1 cup of coffee and, despite the fact that she rarely drank it, she needed an extra jolt today.

She'd had a dream. A _vivid_ dream. About Peeta. Which was pretty normal, except that she needed to _work with_ _him_ today.

She needed to get herself together.

"Hey. Are you okay?" Peeta asked, clearly intent on getting tea or coffee as well.

Katniss spilled the hazelnut Mini Moo she had been holding onto the counter. In a panic, she grabbed a paper towel and swiped at the spill, her hand colliding with a pale, slightly freckled one. She froze: in her dream, that hand had her crying out in greedy need as she held it between her legs and rode it to completion over and over while his lips swallowed her cries—

She swallowed hard and sneaked a peak at his face to find his blue eyes were trained on her, questioning.

"I'm sorry I startled you." He took the wet paper towel from her and broke eye contact to throw it in the garbage, then turned back to her, thrusting one hand into his khakis. The other hand, she noticed, gripped his cane. "First week's always hard to get used to. It gets easier after that."

"No, I'm the one who should be sorry. I'm just tired, I guess. You know, my first day was a lot of information." She looked contrite, realizing he still had not prepared his drink. "Let me get out of your way so you can get…whatever it is that you drink." She stepped out of his way, trying not to be obvious about breathing in his cologne or memorizing the way his dark blonde hair curled wetly on his neck above his plaid button-down.

She wondered if he had just showered and lost herself in a vivid picture of her dream-Peeta soaping himself in a shower while water cascaded down his shoulders and lower. It wasn't until she realized that Peeta had asked her a question that she jolted out of her reverie.

"—What?" she croaked.

He studied her with a small smile playing around his full lips and blue eyes full of laughter. "I was just asking if Boggs was doing a good job of showing you around. Are you getting everything you need?"

Katniss bit her lower lip, pulled her braid over one shoulder and began fiddling with the end. "Yes. I'm fine. I have everything I need, at least so far. Thanks."

Peeta watched her fingers fiddle with her hair for a moment, like he wanted to say something else. Instead, he bobbed his tea bag twice, picked up his mug and raised it to her like a toast. "Excellent. Okay, well, you have a good day, Katniss."

Katniss blew out a breath when he had rounded the corner and mentally cursed herself for missing the opportunity to ask him to lunch. _Am I getting everything I need, Peeta? _she thought. _Hardly. But I'm pretty sure you could fix that._

She straightened her shoulders, took a sip of chocolate hazelnut courage, and went to work.

**The Hunter: Lust**

Peeta Mellark's leg was on fire. Oh, not literally, but in a way that made it worse. The phantom flames of pain were never quite extinguished, always at the periphery of his nerve endings, no matter how much he rubbed where his prosthetic met his flesh in an attempt to put them out. Rain always brought the pain and it had been raining for two straight days. Add to that the feature implementation that wasn't going well because of a persistently elusive software bug, and Peeta Mellark was having an all-around crap week.

He pushed open the door to his condo, lugged the sodden bag of groceries inside and put away the ramen noodles, Pop Tarts, lowfat milk and Green Machine smoothie. He booted his laptop and rubbed his leg absentmindedly while he waited for the teapot to boil.

The day had been _mostly_ crap, he appended. Sure, it had rained and his leg hurt like a bitch. And sure, he still hadn't nailed down the bug that was causing the interface to run more slowly on some OS's, but he had every confidence that he would get it nailed down by the end of the week. No. What had made the week totally remarkable was the new team member that Dave had introduced yesterday morning.

Katniss Everdeen.

Peeta still couldn't believe the coincidence. What were the odds of her being in his city, at the same company, working alongside him? He had been stunned when Dave had introduced her to the team. He'd been even more stunned at how much it brought him back to high school and the time before his accident. He'd been such a gawky kid, totally nuts about her. Of course, he'd never told her. He figured he would have all the time in the world to tell her. Then he was in the car accident that took his leg right before senior year and there was no more time, not even enough to say goodbye. He'd been discharged from the hospital right into the care of his grandparents and moved to Chicago while he learned to walk again.

He smiled to himself as he recalled overhearing Haymitch talking to her at the end of her first day.

"You _do_ realize that this is a business casual environment? Lose the suit tomorrow, before you make me forget that I don't work in government anymore." Haymitch had told her.

Peeta hadn't heard Katniss's reply, but she had come in today wearing pants and a shirt instead. He'd thought it was a shame – the loss of the suit – when he'd noticed her in the break room making some froo-froo coffee drink. He missed the way her jacket had nipped in her waist and showed off the flare of her hips, or the way her skirt made her legs seem to go on forever despite her diminutive height. She had taken off her jacket at one point and the green silk of her blouse had clung to the slope of her breasts so that he actually felt his mouth go dry.

He had thought it tragic until she had stopped by his desk to ask him a question that afternoon, something about the IP addresses for the Q.A. virtual machines.

"Let me send them to you in an email. You'll probably want to save them that way, rather than writing them down. I'd stick with the ones from the ESX servers, or build them yourself. Whatever you do, don't hit anything from Cato Peterson. He took one of our systems home and let it run all weekend. The video he's got on there, well, let's just say that you may not want to see it. Didn't Boggs give you this information?"

Katniss flushed and pulled her braid over her shoulder, exposing the curve of her neck. "He said we'd meet on it later. I thought I would come ask you instead."

Peeta was entranced by her blush and the way she bit her lip when she dropped her eyes from his to settle on his desk.

"You wear glasses?" She was staring at the glasses he had discarded the night before.

"Yeah, when I'm coding and my eyes get tired." His brows knit together as she fumbled with her pad and turned quickly away with a thanks and a wave in his direction. He had had to shrug it off and hope his glasses hadn't offended her in some way.

He sighed and brushed his hands through his curls once he had made his tea and limped to his desk. Opening his blog, he sat with a blinking cursor. Haltingly, he began to type.

_Biting _

_skin, slippery sweet then salty, scraping _

_teeth, tongue_

_lapping,_

_luscious_

_Permettez-moi de vous lécher comme tu cries mon nom_

Peeta frowned and deleted the last line. Where had it come from? There was nothing subtle about what he was saying there, unlike the normal poetry he wrote.

Language normally soothed Peeta. It didn't matter if it was C# or Java, French or English, poetry or prose, Peeta enjoyed the control that words gave him in painting a picture or creating something. He sat staring at the blinking cursor and willed something more to come to no avail. He kept imagining the slope of her shoulder or the crinkle of her forehead while she learned their systems. When he thought of biting, he thought of replacing her teeth with his own and nibbling her plump lower lip until she sighed into his mouth.

_You work with her, get a grip!_ He chastised himself. _So what if it's a girl you knew way-back-when? You're both different people now._

He rubbed his aching leg.

Finally, he gave up trying to write. He shut his laptop and finished his tea, wondering if a shower would help him relax or at least ease his leg. Maybe then he would be able to concentrate.

He stripped off his clothes and turned the water on as hot as he could stand it. While he waited for it to warm up, he padded over to his bathroom window and opened it, enjoying the cool air that freshened the room. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, counting back from twenty five; a relaxation trick he had learned during endless hours of physical therapy and treatment. He opened his eyes when he reached the number one.

And blinked.

And blinked again.

Because the apartment below and across the alley from him had someone getting undressed in their own bathroom who looked amazingly like Katniss Everdeen.

He froze as he felt himself harden: it was wrong to watch her like this, yet he couldn't look away. Her gray shirt was on the floor, her black pants discarded a moment later to reveal tiny scraps of gray lace. Peeta gulped. Katniss pulled her braid over her shoulder and pulled the elastic band holding it together. Slowly, she combed her fingers through her hair a she kicked her pants to the hamper. She shimmied out of her underwear and Peeta had to – he just had to – stroke himself at the sight of her completely naked. He was so amazingly hard, it was like she was right there in front of him, touching him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, his breathing very loud even with the water from the shower running. His imagination flashed an impression of her in that same the shower, his hands sliding from her waist to her hips as his lips bits and licked at her shoulder blade while she ground against him. He had to slow his stroking for a moment and catch his breath.

When his eyes snapped open, she was in the shower.

_Oh, no, Katniss. Not without me. We're going to do this together. _

He had no idea how he was going to face her at work tomorrow. He just knew he couldn't look away when he saw her soaping herself through the foggy glass of her shower enclosure. He flicked out his own lights so that he could see her better and crossed to the shower.

He was going to take a shower with Katniss Everdeen.

**The Hunter: Teambuilding (Sloth)**

"Teambuilding event this Friday, everyone!" Mitch growled in his staff meeting. "We're playing laser tag again. I fucking hate these things, so you guys will all be here. And you will participate. And we will wipe the floor with the Careers. Am I clear? Wear something appropriate, or I will send you home to change."

Katniss leaned over to Vibha, a software engineer on her Scrum team. "laser tag?"

Vibha whispered back, "Yeah, it's a quarterly thing. We never, ever win. Mitch gets pissed because people call in sick, that's how much they avoid it."

"Excuse me, ladies, are you done gossiping?" Mitch hissed.

They both mumbled something in response. Later, when the meeting fell into another lull, Katniss leaned over again. "Does Peeta play?"

Vibha sent her a startled look. "We _all_ play. It's non-negotiable."

"—But his leg—"

Peeta frowned at her from across the conference table. "I'll be fine." He bit out.

Katniss held her tongue when Mitch raised his eyebrow at the three of them, obviously irked again. She could feel the blush on her cheeks and looked at the table while she played with her braid. She hadn't meant to be insulting, but she had seen Peeta with a cane two days out of her first week. That worked out to be a forty percent chance that he would have to play one-handed. Wasn't that fact important if Mitch wanted to win?

When the meeting was over, Mitch called to she and Peeta, "You two. Stay."

She saw Peeta roll his eyes.

Mitch assessed them both. "What's the problem with the two of you?"

"No problem here, sir." Katniss said innocently.

"Uh huh. Look, Everdeen. Like most Q.A. people, you have the personality of a slug. And I don't know what your problem is with Mellark here, but Peeta here is one of my strongest coders. Are we going to have a problem with the two of you working together?"

Katniss's eyes widened and flew to Peeta's. He couldn't know it, but she had come to this job specifically to work with him. Sure, her delivery wasn't the best. But it didn't mean—

"Mitch, we'll be fine. Katniss and I grew up together. Right Katniss?" Peeta looked bored, slumped in his seat. She noticed with a sinking stomach that he wouldn't look at her.

"Oh?" Interest sparked in Mitch's gray eyes.

"Yeah. You'll probably want to know that she's a crack shot, too." Peeta drawled.

Katniss looked at Peeta in confusion. "What?"

Mitch rubbed his hands together. "You don't say? We might finally have a chance to win this thing, then. Remember, you're both here Friday at 11 sharp. Don't disappoint me."

Mitch left the room, leaving Katniss and Peeta alone. He slowly gathered his things when she blew up.

"How could you say that? I don't even know how to play laser tag! And now Mitch thinks I can work some sort of miracle or something."

He watched her for a moment, blue eyes unreadable. "Katniss, chill out. You'll do fine. Even if you haven't hunted since you were a kid, you'll do better than most of the city folks who work with us."

She frowned. "How did you—"

Peeta dropped his eyes to this notebook. "I remembered that you and your dad used to go hunting on the weekends."

Katniss gaped at him as he finished gathering his stuff. She noticed again how long his eyelashes were as they shielded his eyes. They were remarkable, really, long and thick.

"See you 'round?" He smirked at her as she jolted guiltily in her seat.

She nodded, oblivious to the way his eyes skimmed her face and lingered on her eyes, lips, and neck before skating away.

-o—

"You holding back, sweetheart? Anytime you want to use the force, 'Crack Shot Katniss', you go right ahead." Mitch sneered as he landed behind the same wall she was hiding behind.

Katniss argued back. "I don't want to piss off my colleagues." She adjusted the laser tag rifle and harness. Both were uncomfortable, the harness chafing her shoulders.

Mitch laughed. "Cocky, aren't you? First of all, you'd have to have something to show us. Second of all, you're pissing off me, sweetheart. And since I'm your boss, I would say that's the bigger problem for you. We didn't hire you for mediocrity."

Katniss gulped and nodded her understanding: she really needed this job. She really _liked_ this job. And she loved the fact that she got to work side by side with Peeta almost every day, even if she hadn't yet found the courage to ask him to lunch.

She and Mitch turned in the direction of a horrible wail just in time to see Cato Peterson rushing an obstruction to their right. Peeta must have been behind it because he leapt out from behind it, trying to lose Cato and stay alive. He was slower than Cato, though, and Cato seemed pumped to go after the best coder on the Scrumptious team.

Without a thought, Katniss yelled for Peeta, rounding the edge of the wall and taking Cato out with a single shot to the receiver on his chest. Several other Careers heard her cry and made an appearance, all meeting the same fate.

She was breathing hard when she pulled Peeta to his feet and ordered him behind the nearest wall.

"Told you that you would be great at this." He grinned.

"Shut up." She grumbled, absurdly pleased at his compliment. He winced and she immediately asked, "Are you okay?"

He nodded. Yeah, I think I twisted my good ankle when I jumped over the wall. Looks like I'm as good as dead. Might as well lie down and die right now."

Her jaw tensed. "No way."

"Katniss, look. Ten minutes ago, you were just going to play at being mediocre so these guys wouldn't hate you. Don't change up your strategy for me. I'll just go, get hit, sit down and wait for pizza and beer."

Irrational anger filled her to overflowing. "Are you quitting on me, Mellark? You're the one who told Mitch that I'm a great shot. You think I can't take down a few Careers? Just trust me. Okay? Trust me. And cover my back."

Peeta sighed and nodded. He was clearly ready to throw in the towel but unwilling to give up on her.

Katniss Everdeen stood and started shooting.

* * *

_(A/N: This is not currently a WIP. It was written, in three parts, for three prompts during Prompts in Panem's Seven Deadly Sins Challenge. Like Prince Among Men, it **will** be longer than this snippet. I am committed to getting GNO further along before I delve into this story. Also, I am curious to see if anyone is interested in actually seeing it extended - I'll probably write it anyway, even if the answer is no - but let me know what you think.)_


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